Charlee Nathan a.k.a Hausarabian (Peace Ambassador) most listened and talked about mainstream music act returning from Lagos temporarily based in Jalingo city- Taraba State on a peace advocacy mission as a pioneer founder of Zaman Peace Movement. He gives out this Afro DanceHall collaboration with Jesse Jagz of JagzNation/Chocolate City, titled “Za’a Cire Reni”. Charlie Nathan never relents giving out good music. Download and feel the vibez #goomusicspeakslouder

Tuesday, August 18, three books written by Hakeem Bello and Dapo Adeniyi on the administration of Babatunde Raji Fashola, the immediate past governor of Lagos State were launched.

Senior journalist Professor Olatunji Dare was one of those who reviewed the books.
His work was read on his behalf by seasoned broadcaster, Angela Ajetunmobi at the public presentation of the three books, The Great Leap, In Bold Print and The Lagos Blowdown. Below is what Dare presented.
Note that the presentation was initially scheduled for May 15 before the May 29 handing over of political offices.

This is my first post-retirement assignment.

I cannot think of a more agreeable way of entering into this new phase of life which began yesterday than lending
a helping hand to a dutiful aide’s public presentation of
a chronicle on the time in office of his luminous principal.
The luminous principal is Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN, Governor of Lagos State.

The dutiful aide is his media adviser of eight years,
Hakeem Bello. The chronicle comprises a judicious selection from more than 1000 speeches Governor Fashola has delivered at home and abroad on four continents during his eight years in office.

Titled The Great Leap, the compilation comes with a companion, In Bold Print, a pocket book
of quotations distilled from the speeches.

When Hakeem Bello invited me to deliver a “prefatory essay” at the presentation of the two publications, I accepted
without hesitation, despite the tight deadline and the
crush of prior commitments.

For one thing, the request came from a younger colleague whose
quiet competence and efficiency I have admired since his days as a rising star in the Daily
Times. For another, the day’s honours would devolve most worthily on exceptional achiever.

To be asked to play a part in the ceremony, surely,
was an honour in itself.

Soon enough, I began to wonder whether I had not been too rash in granting Hakeem’s request.
What is a “prefatory essay?” Stripped of its elegance,
is the term not at bottom a book review? Is it not a case of
unnecessary dignification, of literary inflation? What exactly was
I expected to do at the event?

I turned to some friends for help, but none of them was
the wiser. One of them said he suspected that Hakeem wanted a review but thought it
would be presumptuous to ask me to do it; so he
settled for a fancy term, hoping that I would not see through the subterfuge.

Bereft of proper guidance in this matter, I have chosen to draw on the two publications to sketch Fashola’s approach
to governance and the lessons that flow from it, for
the benefit of the political class of today and tomorrow.

The Fashola years

Fashola’s accomplishments as Governor of Lagos State have been universally acknowledged.

Most recently, the global conflict prevention organization, International Crisis
Group (ICG), named him one of seven outstanding personalities
worldwide to be honoured with its annual Stephen J.
Solarz Award “for his commitment to resolving social, economic and security challenges in one of the world’s most challenging urban environments.”

Previous recipients of the award have included former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton; former Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

For further perspective, hear this, from the
International Crisis Group: “The award goes to a pioneer of peace, to a relentless fighter for the improvement of people’s lives, to someone who has built bridges, believed in change and mobilized others in the name of justice.”

This is the rarefied company to which Governor Fashola belongs.

There is yet another perspective worth remarking.
In the United States, the job of Mayor of the City of New
York is considered the second most demanding and difficult, after that of the President.
For all practical purposes, Fashola combines the office
of the maga-city that is Lagos, with that of state governor.
Based on projections by the best authorities, the population of the Lagos megalopolis should reach 25 million this year.
If Lagos were a sovereign state, it would have the
fifth largest economy in Africa – and that is without
any re-basing.

It is therefore no exaggeration to assert that if governing
State is not as demanding and challenging as governing Nigeria, it comes a close second.
And, since the Second Republic, the task has been rendered much more difficult by the fact that Lagos refused to dissolve itself into the mainstream of Nigerian politics.
For that very reason, every government at the
Centre has sought to teach Lagos a hard lesson.

I was reminded of this long-running animosity by Governor
Fashola himself the other day when I called to congratulate him on the APC’s hard-won battle to retain Lagos, and
on his having ramped up a string of sparkling achievements, despite
the active hostility of the Federal Government.

Shehu Shagari’s NPN-controlled Federal Government in the Second Republic blockading Lateef
Jakande’s UPN administration on every front. In the aborted Third Republic,
Ernest Shonekan’s mercifully Interim Government and General Sani
Abacha complicated matters for Governor Michael Otedola’s minority administration.

President Olusegun Obasanjo impounded statutory allocations to Lagos State
because Governor Bola Tinubu dared to create local government development councils to minister unto the needs
of the people. The Goodluck Administration would
not repair broken federal infrastructure in Lagos State; neither would it refund expenses incurred by the State in fixing it.

But in fixing it and executing other projects for the benefit of the people of Lagos often incurred the armed
wrath of the federal authorities. Like Asiwaju Bola Tinubu before him, Fashola took in his stride every attempt by Abuja to cripple his administration, never losing his focus, his temper, and his tempo

What is the secret of his spectacular success in an office he never sought – an office into which he was literally dragooned?
Answers to this important question are strewn here and there in The Great Leap and In Bold Print.

Groomed for the job

First was his conviction that if you seek public office, you must prepare for it.

And if even you are dragooned into it as he was, or stumble into it,
you still have to prepare yourself to discharge that office creditably.
You cannot take office hoping to muddle through. Settled polities where relative contentment
reigns can afford the luxury of muddling through;
polities in a hurry to meet the basic needs of the people, develop and modernize cannot afford it.

This conviction was backed by a fundamental article of faith: If you attain public office, you must use it to serve only the public good.

On taking office, he set out on a comprehensive tour of Lagos State to identify
and define the problems he would have to tackle. First, what were the underlying
cause of the difficulties and frustrations of living in Lagos?
Why would motorists, at great risk to themselves
and other road users, drive against the flow of traffic?
Why would petty traders turn pedestrian sidewalks into markets?
Why would people clog the drains with refuse? Were the residents inherently lawless?

Fashola commissioned a poll to find out how far his definition of the situation coincided with public expectations.
“You do not own the facts” is one of his guiding principles.
Thereafter, he set out on another tour of the state in an effort to validate the poll findings, to know what is “on ground” as
our people say.

From all this it was clear that infrastructural deficiency was a
major constraint on living in Lagos. Consequently, he devised a budget plan to set aside 60 percent
of revenue for capital projects, and 40 percent for recurrent expenditure.

Facing the task

Thereafter, he drew a road map showing very clearly how to get from Point A to Point B.
He marked off the map into blocks for implementation and sought an answer to the critical question: Who are the best people for the job?

Wide consultations followed on costing, strategies for implementation,
and sustainability. Not for Fashola the glitzy showpiece guaranteed to be
as evanescent as rainbow gold. So, planning, diligent
and meticulous planning, is one of the hallmarks
of the Fashola Style.

Efficient time management and fidelity to the people are crucial elements in the Fashola
approach to governance. Deadlines have to be met and promises made to the people
have to be kept.

Following through is another key element in Fashola’s way of doing business.
In many states but most notably in Abuja, contracts are awarded with fanfare and the mere
announcement of a project is celebrated as actual accomplishments.
For the most part, one rarely hears anything again about the projects.

The Fashola approach is to start a project unobtrusively, monitor it diligently to completion, and commission it just as unobtrusively.
If the project is stalled for one reason or another,
the public gets to know. It is not about Fashola or even his
administration; it is about service to the people, about keeping faith with them

From the moment he took office, Fashola has sought the best practices from all over
the world. He traveled to Singapore, Dubai, and New York not as a tourist, and certainly not on a shopping expedition, but as a city
manager out to study and learn.

He not only devoured Lee Kuan Yew’s memoir From Third World to First, he gave copies to all of his colleagues and aides for their edification. He also burrowed into the book Leadership, by Rudy Giuliani who,
as Mayor of New York, steered that city through the horrors of September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade
Centre

The city manager’s approach has redefined Lagos
as a place where transformation is not a slogan but a
lived reality. We see transformation in the expanded and still expanding network of roads,
the manicured green lawns, the well-tended parks,
open spaces, the clean streets, the city rail service
that will commence operations soon,

commence operations soon, expanded ferry service, clearance of slums to make room for housing that
affirms human dignity, clean streets, improved health care delivery system
that saved Nigeria from the scourge of Ebola, better drainage, school buildings that provide a healthy environment for learning,
reduced crime rate, and in expansion of business and economic opportunity.
We see it in the vast promise of Lagos Atlantic City.

Fashola’s tenure offers us an example of engaged leadership driven by purpose
and design, a leader who does not wait for the future to happen but makes it happen. He has led by personal example, guided by Gandhi’s admonition for all
ages: “Be the change you want to be.”

Fashola reminds us of something that many of his contemporaries never learned or have long
forgotten: Public service is no tea party, no picnic.
It demands the highest degree of discipline, sacrifice, commitment, and determination.

He is probably the only governor who does not use a siren to clear the path for
his motorcade. Sirens, he says, aggravate rather than solve traffic problems, and their use is “uncivilized.” Were
it left to him, only ambulances, fire engines and police on lives-saving missions would use them

What drives Fashola? What fires him?

The answer to this question is to be found in his 2008 Budget Presentation Speech delivered before the Lagos
State House of Assembly on December 17, 2008:
“. . . I remind myself always that one day, I will no more be in office. One day, I will no more be young. Surely, I want to live in a clean and secure environment in my old age. Whatever good I can do today, therefore, let me do it .If we do not do what we need to do today, ours will become a tragic tale of failed and unutilized opportunities, which will come to haunt us when it is too late. Let us seize our opportunities now.”

On that same occasion, he challenged the state legislators:

“Shall you and I leave this earth with the black man still the humiliated universally symbol of poverty, underdevelopment and incompetence? Or will we do all we can now to showcase, within our lifetime, our state and our country as undeniable evidence of the black man’s genius? Surely the choice is ours and the tine to act is now. . .”

The time is now. Not in the year 2020, not in some nebulous future.
An optimistic agenda, to be sure, but what is leadership if it is not rooted in optimism, in faith and confidence
in the capacity of the people to rise to the challenge
of the moment?

Five years ago, only the most optimistic in the ranks of the progressive believed, and fewer still could openly assert, that the ACN would in due course
supplant the PDP as the governing party at the Centre. The PDP advertised itself as
the largest political party in Africa, and it was no idle boast when its senior figures proclaimed at every
opportunity that it would govern Nigeria for 60 unbroken years.

Fashola was one of few to declare openly that the PDP’s days were
numbered. With proper planning and rigorous implementation of its
people-oriented policies, he said in a speech marking Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary,
“it is only a matter of time before we take charge of the Centre and decisively pull Nigeria up to its rightful place in the comity of rapidly developing nations.”

Today, five years later, the progressives are set to take charge.
The Fashola Administration has set Lagos
firmly and decisively on the path of achieving its destiny as one of 19
global mega-cities, a city that works for all its residents, now estimated to number 24.5 million. I do not envy his successor, Governor-elect
Akinwumi Ambode.

His legacy

It is necessary to acknowledge that much of the infrastructural development for which the Fashola administration is justly celebrated has come at a price, especially to
the more vulnerable sections of the population. You hear it said on the streets,
especially by those used to a way of life Fashola rejects as an affront to human dignity and wants to change, that he
cares only for people like himself.

His answer is that a leader must see the future and, with courage act proactively to save the people from future dangers.
But he has done so with compassion, providing as resources allow, a more decent
environment for communities whose shanty homes fell to the bulldozer, or
communities displaced by natural disasters.

We have not always seen such compassion in Nigeria.

It remains to add that one reason Fashola
succeeded so spectacularly is that he did not have to play politician. He was never mired in the
horse-trading, the pandering to entrenched interests that often undermine the
most clearly-formulated plans. He was splendidly insulated
from that treacherous threshold by his predecessor Asiwaju Bola
Tinubu, who did the political work, thus freeing Fashola to continue changing the face of
Lagos without undue distractions.

They had their disagreements, but on the whole, this arrangement, which Fashola rarely misses an opportunity to acknowledge in public, has served the people of Lagos State and
could well serve as a model for other states. We all are
in Hakeem Bello’s debt for making available in The Great Leap forty speeches
that define a unique experience in the art and craft of governance
in Nigeria, and the singular driver of that experience,
Babatunde Raji Fashola.

Public officials will read it with great profit, as will serving
and in-coming governors and I have resisted the temptation to end this presentation by welcoming Governor Fashola to the rank I joined just yesterday – the rank of retired persons.
Something tells me he will be summoned again to work his
magic on a national scale.

Your Excellencies, your Highnesses, distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
I thank you for your time and attention. And I thank Hakeem Bello for giving me the opportunity to present what I hope has not
been too flagrant a departure from the “prefatory essay” he had in mind.

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